“I had a c-section in 2009. The cost of dr. appts and sonograms and the delivery cost roughly $3,400. Called my doc today and now it’s over $7,000! I get a 10% discount since I self-pay so lucky me gets 6 monthly installments of $1,138,” wrote rocking_e.

Sadly, $3,400 sounds like a C-section bargain, as PrettyBrownBabies noted: “Ouch!!! But really, that sounds pretty cheap. My cousin was just billed $12,465 for her repeat (C-section) and 4 days hospital stay.”

“In 2011, my 5-day hospital stay, failed induction and emergency C-section cost $30,000,” added alcollins10. “Thank god for insurance! That did not include Dr. visits or any other ER visits.”

It’s difficult (and scientifically inaccurate) to draw definitive conclusions based on this thread or any others because, as they say, we’re not necessarily comparing apples to apples. Are we talking total cost for the procedure or out-of-pocket costs after insurance covered its cost? Does it include doctor appointments and the anesthesiologist? The extra hospital stay? A lot of those costs are billed out separately (probably to confuse and exhaust patients into paying without questions, says cynical me).

For instance, I had two C-sections–one in 2004, the other in 2008–and both times I was billed hundreds of dollars per night (for four nights) for a private room, HOWEVER, the hospital I birthed in only offered private rooms (as do most medical centers in my community). So why should I be charged if I don’t have the option to share a room? I didn’t notice the fee for the 2004 delivery until years later. But in 2008, I spent hours fighting the charge.

I was insured for both births, and I cannot remember the total bills but I (bitterly) recall paying approximately $5,500 in out-of-pocket expenses in 2004 and nearly $8,000 in 2008 (yes, our insurance sucked). The latter is NOT including my son’s three-day stay in the NICU, which costs thousands of more dollars and came from pediatric specialists.

While not scientific, our experiences show how crazy-high-insane it costs to give birth, particularly by C-section (although vaginal deliveries cost less, it’s still not cheap for many). Health insurance costs are so high, many families cannot afford any policies (another thread in BabyCenter Community). Not helping is the increasing number of women receiving C-sections (some who are bullied into it by their doctors–and those doctors, I’m sure, aren’t going to stress over the postpartum medical debts).

How much did your birth(s) cost? Is it a worry? Or a factor when considering whether to have another baby?

Recent posts

My second birth was a planned c-section, I was in the hospital for two nights in a private room ( it’s a hospital specifically for women & babies, all rooms are private) and my total out if pocket expense was $500. My first birth was an emergency c/s @ 25 weeks, I was already in the hospital for two weeks prior and my daughter was in the NICU for 21 days-the total bill for all of that was a litte over $600,000, luckily our deductible was only $500 plus a couple of lab bills. I was incredibly lucky to have excellent health insurance through my employer.

Sam

We had a homebirth and paid $2300 for everything. That included all the prenatal visits, labor and delivery, and the postpartum care(which is a visit at 3 days, 1 week, 2 weeks, 4 weeks, and 6 weeks and is also a well baby visit complete with weight checks!). If you are strapped for cash and are comfortable/ able to, a homebirth is much cheaper than a hospital birth. The level of care is so much better too!

Gina

OMG if you can’t afford insurance why are you having children??? Its not just the delivery but hello, children get sick OFTEN, need monthly check ups and need vaccinations (unless you’re crunchy and don’t want to protect your children from illnesses)

Its one thing to have crappy insurance, but none at all???

Know what costs less? Condoms.

megan

not a worry here. i had 4.5 days in the hospital after a labor that spanned three days and a c sec and recovery. i don’t worry because we are military and have all birth-related stuff covered. i think we get charged around 18/day for a hospital stay for me, but thats not a big deal at all. im going in for a repeat c-sec next time, happily after that much labor and a c-sec anyway. my first one was around 5-6K at a tiny hospital in my home town…never did see a bill for the dr’s preforming the c-sec so not sure how that was factored in. i was on my dad’s insurance at the time (only 21) and dh and i were college students so the hospital excused the remaining debt. it was a very very kind gesture.

Eek565

My son was born in the hospital and I had an uncomplicated vaginal birth. Still the bill for a two night stay was well over $10k in 2009! Thankfully, we had really great insurance and I just had to pay $100.

The next time around my daughter was a homebirth. The midwife charged $4k for all of my prenatal care, delivery, and postnatal check ups. The level of care was excellent and on a level I much preferred compared to my previous experience.

Now I just have to convince my “excellent” insurance to cover another homebirth. They would save so much money!

Laura

I’m really lucky because my company offers great insurance. For both my births, my out of pocket expenses were about 12 dollars (phone and tv in the hospital room) and that includes all pre natal care as well. The hospital was also fantastic. My son had to stay in for observation (due to a heart arrythmia) for three days after I was discharged but they let me stay in my room on the maternity ward free of charge so that I didn’t have to leave my baby to get some sleep.

Mandy

I have to agree with Gina. People need to seriously consider not only the immediate financial impact of birth, but the costs of possibly complications, childcare, supplies, etc. that go along with having a child. Too many people get pregnant (planned) and THEN realize how $$ it is and have to stressfully scramble to get insurance, a new job, whatever. It’s stupid for people to think they can just have a kid and live their life like before.

http://Theadventurousmama.blogspot.com Milania’s Mommy

I got a statement in the mail after I gave birth it was over $25,000 for my emergency c-section and 4 night stay in the hospital for me alone. I was only 24 and still finishing college so I was still covered under my father’s insurance he has good health insurance so we paid nothing. My daughter however was not covered under his insurance so I got a bill in the mail saying I owed $3,400 for her 3 night stay in the hospital. I had to apply for insurance for low income families funded by the state so in the end I didn’t pay anything. I’m just glad my daughter was approved there is no way I could have paid $3400 out of pocket. It’s ridiculous no wonder people are having less children no one can afford it anymore. I don’t know how much it was with all my ob/gyn appointments probably a lot more not to mention my 3 visits to the ER and my 5 day hospital stay while pregnant due to kidney stones.

Marci

No worry here! I had one hospital birth, and one homebirth. Lucky for me, I live in Ontario, Canada, where both either homebirth or hospital birth with a midwife, as well as hospital birth with an OB/GYN, are covered by the government. We don’t spend a dime out of pocket. Hearing the costs some of you ladies are mentioning, I shudder to think of what would happen if I lived where some of you all are instead of Canada! Yikes. No one should have to be stressed about such things; women have enough to worry about these days as it is.

Brooke

For my first in 2010, the hospital billed my insurance $30,000 for my 3 days of “room and board” for an uncomplicated vaginal birth. That did not include the cost of all of my prenatal appts., the doctor’s delivery fee, labwork, ultrasounds, or any of my son’s costs. I think my insurance only paid $7000 due to their contracted rate with the hospital. But really $10,000 a night to stay in a small uncomfortable room with crappy food seemed outrageous. Even though I didn’t have to pay out of pocket, I was still paying through my insurance premiums. It just seems insane.

Karin

I am very lucky and have excellent insurance and only had to pay a $16 fee for having TV and phone in my room for my 3 day stay in the hospital. Not a co pay or deductible had to be paid. I did check out my EOBs from giving birth 2 years ago to giving birth this year and the prices have increased by $2000 for non c-section birth.

Nikki

Being the extremely naive 19 year old that I was when I was pregnant, it never even occurred to me that the actual birth was going to cost money. Don’t ask me why I didn’t think of it, it was extremely stupid. I did a really good job saving up for all the things I would need after he was born, but when I got the bill in the mail for my completely uncomplicated birth in which I took no drugs or anything, I was back to nickel and diming. Next time I won’t even go, as my active labor only lasted for an hour. It would just be really helpful if the hospital or ob/gyn would give you some sort of estimate before hand.

Kelly

I got pregnant (planned) and then my employer changed the insurance policy from 4000 high deductible and everything covered after deductible to 4000 high deductible plus 20% coinsurance up to 8000. They knew I was planning a pregnancy so a heads up would have been nice. So even if you are insured and plan properly, crap still happens. I bring home only 60% of my pay in order to pay for the delivery and will still have to make payments for god knows how long. Due to HSA limits, I couldn’t put enough away during the year even if I could afford to. I think healthcare is outrageous and only going to get worse!!!!!

http://expatcatlife.blogspot.com Jules

This is why I’m glad I live in a country where the laws mandate that insurance actually covers stuff like this. Home birth would have been completely covered by my insurance. If I wanted to give birth in a hospital, they would bill me €200 (thereabouts)–unless I had a medical indication. If I did, it would be covered. It also covers the home care I received for a week after the birth.

I swear, if I had gotten pregnant in the States, I would have considered abortion a lot more, simply because we couldn’t afford the extra thousands of dollars that would be tacked on even if we had insurance.

Faith

We forked up a grand total of $6000 in cash for an unmedicated vaginal delivery at a birth center. And that was AFTER my insurance company said they’d cover our birth center delivery–and then changed their minds. Seriously. It didn’t even go toward my deductible. God knows what would’ve happened if I’d had to transfer…my biggest fear was that I wouldn’t go into labor naturally and would need an induction, which would cost even more money on top of what we’d already paid.

Julius

I never tire of hearing how much better it is in other countries. After having been hospitalized in Europe, I am even less patient with this argument.

I did talk to a co-worker whose daughter per-payed her child’s birth in monthly installments prior to the birth. She saved a whole lot. The cost was as best
I can recall 40-50% of what you are charged after the birth. She did have to pay the full bill prior to having the baby. Might be worth checking out.

Julius

Just curious Faith how do you know the induction or hospital birth would have cost more? Did they say that? Middle they explain why?

I just was wondering becuz some insurance cos are Leary of birthing centers in fear of complications.

Just curious what their reasoning was for that.

Morgan

Home birth, it was wonderful and way more afforbable. 3000 for my whole 9 months of care and visits, birth and delivery and six months of check ups after. We paid monthly so it was even more affordable. Thank goodness for our very qualified, kind, midwife. We were in the best hands without all the extra cost.

koolchicken

I had an emergency c section at 36 weeks, I never went into labor. I spent 23 hours in the hospital (I could have stayed 4 days with no cost difference). The whole thing including the baby’s care would have cost about $4,000. But my son was flown off island by private fixed wing plane and sent to a bigger medical center on another island. He stayed in the NICU for 6 days, and we saw a pediatrician the day after we were released. Without insurance we would have paid around $70,000, with insurance we were responsible for $2,500. That’s actually the maximum our insurance can charge us for the whole year per person. And there’s a 30 day period where my son and I are still considered one person so we didn’t have to pay that co-pay more than once.

Unfortunately he had continued health problems and he was born in November so when the insurance reset in January we started having to pay again (EKGs, cardiologist, pediatrician, my OB, etc.). There’s also the cost of flights, hotel, and food when we fly over to see his cardiologist, we may have to do that again in a couple of months too if his doc can’t come to us. I’m really grateful my husband has the insurance he does. And was smart enough to buy meld flight insurance when I got pregnant. Although we found out our regular provider would have covered it we would have had a separate copayment of I think $2,000 so the separate insurance covered that.

Wilma

Another Canadian here. Our health care system is definitely not perfect, but I am very happy that the only cost we paid was a couple hundred dollars for getting a private room, which wasn’t covered by our provincial health insurance. I think it would be very stressful to have to worry about paying for proper health care–having a baby is tough enough as it is!

Wilma

Oh, and Julius, I know only my experience in my own country. I’ve never been hospitalized in Europe, but I would guess that, like elsewhere, the experience would depend on the country, the area in that country, and the particular hospital. I do like hearing what others have gone through, however, both in Canada, the US, and in other countries. Different perspectives can help make informed choices!

Greentea

I’m thankful for our insurance! I am pregnant with our 2nd and still have the same insurance as I did with our 1st. We are part of an HMO – my husband also works for them – but we don’t get a better plan because of that. Our plans were similar whether I was covered on my own through my employer or on his. Our choice here is Blue Cross or an HMO. The HMO has cheaper premiums and zero deductible. We don’t pay a copay for our midwife/maternity care appointments. I had a C-section and then my daughter was in the NICU for 2 days. We had a private room and the hospital had a new catered food program that my husband was covered for meals (I was on the bland diet but he had quite the gourmet feast). Plus we had access to a snack room for both of us – yogurt, milk, juice, Starbucks, etc., all free. We paid nothing except for $20 when we left -which was our copay for 2 medications from the pharmacy. When I saw the statement – the total was around $38K for the room, NICU, surgery, etc.

Jamie

of course i can, proud Canadian here. our only cost from pregnancy test to birth was parking. Another benefit to free healthcare is that there aren’t mommas ‘electing’ to have c-sections because its more convenient or they’re scared for their vaginas, here you don’t get it if its not medically necessary for mom and/or baby.

joye

Eye roll at Gina and others suggesting that “condoms are cheaper”. Even if you assume 98% effectiveness for condoms (and the actual failure rate is much more than that), that means of one million women using condoms as birth control, 20,000 will get pregnant!

And that’s not to mention the all too common scenario that pregnancy is followed by job loss or insurance change.

In my experience, you’re actually better off not being insured at all, since you are then eligible for various government programs that cover uninsured women, most of which have no out-of-pocket expenses. If your job “provides” terrible insurance with high deductibles and premiums, however, then you’re really stuck.

If other countries can figure this out without going bankrupt, surely the US can figure out a better way, especially when the US is spending just as much per capita on healthcare as some other countries where coverage is universal and zero out of pocket!

Faith

@Julius: the insurance co originally said they’d cover the birth center out-of-network, but then when they got the bill, they refused to pay for it based on the code the BC used. And because of the code the BC billed with, the insurance co wouldn’t put any of it toward my deductible, so we paid the Birth Center the full $6000 in cash, and if I’d had to get induced or had to transfer during labor, I would’ve had to pay the $3000 deductible before they would’ve covered anything else. It was pretty stressful to labor knowing there was $3000 on the line (possibly more) if I didn’t progress.

Diane

My only comment is that if you experience infertility and then have to go the adoption route to parenthood, you end up paying for infertility treatment which is not covered at all and then about 20,000- 30,000 for the adoption. I would rather have had the hospital bills. (financially speaking only) Everyone’s perspective is different depending on their experience.

AS

I have great insurance. For everything (OB care, blood tests, hospital), I had to pay out about $2k. I don’t know if you noticed or not, but I would receive a statement from our insurance company that would show what the charges were, what they paid, and what was left for each visit, test, etc. This was in addition to the invoice I paid. On the statement from the insurance company, there would be the amount invoiced and then an “insurance company discount” which was rather sizable. If you do not have insurance and you are paying out of pocket, no discount for you! That blew my mind. I have no idea how people do in uninsured. I also noticed on the hospital bill for my daughter that she was charged for a “baby room”. I’m assuming that was the bassinet/box thing that was in the recovery room for her….my hospital does mom/baby room, no nursery so that was the only thing I could figure out it was for!

http://babytoolkit.com adrienne

We’ve had three wonderful kids by c-section in the past 8 years.

I was pretty overwhelmed by the expense for the first two, but can hardly muster any concern after the third reset my whole scope of medical costs.

Congratulations to the home birthers, and I’m genuinely happy you were able to have the savings and comfort you wanted, but that option isn’t available for every family. My kids were not candidates for traditional birth (at least one of us, maybe both, would not have survived the birth) and due to a very rare pregnancy condition, two of my major organ systems were shutting down when baby three was extracted quite early.

That’s when I learned about serious hospital bills. My youngest’s health problems (probably linked to my rare condition during her gestation) resulted in medical bills that exceeded the purchase price of my home and just kept going up.

Thankfully, we have old-school insurance, so we paid only a portion until out-of-pocket maximums eventually kicked in and we didn’t have to declare bankruptcy.

But time in a children’s specialty hospital made me realize the incredible difference between an acute problem and chronic ones. I have utmost admiration for the families who face ongoing medical treatment (sometimes lifelong) and its devastating financial and time demands with grace and courage.

Like me before my third child, most people with healthy kids have no real appreciation for great blessing they have received in their children’s good health.

Having a child is rolling the dice and making yourself vulnerable to the universe. By adding a new person to your family, you add probability of more unanticipated costs (and unanticipated rewards).

Planning is great, but planners are not exempt from the unexpected; they too need resilience and flexibility to survive. Plan but don’t lose hope when plans are undermined. And should your plans work out, be grateful- but don’t think that everything worked well because of how you planned. Definitely don’t assume that people with hardship didn’t plan well in advance.

I’m incredibly grateful for my kids, and I wouldn’t have them without C-sections and other marvels of modern medicine. I’ll happily drive a 16 year-old car and plan stay-cations heavily involving the library to have them in my life. Bonus- my kids love books and have active imaginations.

heatherf

Since having my last baby 2.5 years ago and to this one due in July my cost for insurance monthly has doubled and so has my deductible from 2300 to 4500…. and thats through my husbands employer :/

My first DS cost me maybe around 1,000. Different insurance plan then and my deductible was 750. It was also a Vaginal Birth.

2nd DS was an emergency c-section and before insurance just the hospital bill was 18,000. we paid a total around 3500 for his birth.

This one… I’m going for a VBAC. I believe a vaginal birth is a better choice but honestly with how high our insurance is I really want it because its cheaper!! Luckily our max for the year is around 10,000 so even if something goes wrong we wont have to pay anymore then that. That is still a lot of money.

Thats life though and part of being an adult. Honestly, we looked at it from the point of view that, what if we had to pay the max could we afford it? We could.. it wouldn’t be pleasant but its possible. If we didn’t feel like we could afford it we wouldn’t be having baby #3 right now. I agree with a previous poster… condoms are a lot cheaper then having a baby!

heatherf

And #24 joy.. other countries can afford to do it without going bankruped because they have crazy high taxes. My friend use to live in Germany and was a German citizen and yes, she said they had a ton of government programs… but over HALF of her pay check was taken out in taxes. HALF!! Take your salary and cut it in half and tell me then how you feel about that.

AS

You have to think though….when you combine the US tax rates, costs for insurance, and deductibles/co-pays/etc, most are probably loosing way more than half their paychecks.

http://toriska.com Tori

We have really great insurance now. Pretty much all we will pay is $25 copayments for two ultrasounds, and then $250 for each night I am admitted. We chose to go with a birth center this time, which means just one night. Last birth we checked out of the hospital a night early in order to pay only $500 as opposed to $750.

Honestly, we would not be able to afford having children if our insurance wasn’t this good. I feel very blessed. It’s expensive each month, but has been worth it. I really feel for those who have to not only pay high deductibles but then have to go and pay a percentage on top of that. That’s how our first birth was, and it took us years to pay off her birth completely.

Anna W

I had awesome insurance when my son was born. I paid absolutely nothing for prenatal care or my c-section hospital stay. Giving up that insurance when I decided to be a stay at home mom was way more of a sacrifice than giving up the (relativity small) pay check. Now we have a high deductible plan through my husbands job. We know baby number 2 will cost at least $4000, and that’s assuming we can plan things right so that prenatal care and birth happen in the same calender year. Otherwise we could be looking at up to $8000.

I was shocked when I looked at my hospital bill for my son. Things like a $200 pediatric exam everyday we where in the hospital, when said exam consisted of a pediatric resident coming into our room and spending maybe 5 min taking his vitals then leaving. He was a perfectly healthy newborn.

mamaof3

gina and others seriously need to get off the judgement bandwagon. condoms and other “birth control” are NOT 100%…..EVER! we have 3 children and 2 were concieved while on birth control. my husband and i chose to incure whatevermay come with

mamaof3

cont….my point being everything in life is not in our control. i would rather be broke with happy healthy children then abort a child.
and for the record all three pregnancies and births cost us well over 100k and we are still paying for them.

Julius

To Wilma. I am on my iPhone so I apologize for errors. I was hospitalized for dehydration in February in Germany. They thought I had norovirus so I had to stay for 2 days. It turned out that I was not contagious. They were very nice. Language barrier was a problem. They were not able to treat my stomach pain, but by the time I left I was able to drink and eat some food.

The worst part was my toilet. I did not have a bathroom and so they gave me an old wheelchair with a whole in the seat and a bucket. The wheel chair was old do if I moved it , an arm or the back would come off. I had to ask for it to be changed. I did not want to be a demanding American so I put up with it for a long time.

My IV was supposed to be changed when it ran dry. I rang the nurses to change it and sometimes it took about an hour or more. Others it was really quick.

Everyone was very nice.

Despite my stomach pain and nausea I was given processed meat and cheese for every meal. My colleagues brought me soda so that was really helpful and allowed me to leave the hospital.

What frightened me most was how old the equipment was. The blood pressure cuff was the old kind with a dial that had to be pumped. The guy didn’t have his glasses on so he kept having to do it. That was ok though because he tried to talk to me and I appreciated that.

Any screen or monitor I saw looked old. The tv in my room did not work and the bed adjusted like a lawn chair would.

It was a very bleak and scary experience and I am grateful that my problem was just a stomach issue. I was able to travel back home and I am mostly back to normal.

I can’t wait to hear people call me a snob or whatever. I just find being in a hospital more comfortable in us. I also wonder if they could have done the lab testing for the virus in house (as many Am. Hospitals do) and allow me to leave earlier so I could drink soda in the comfort of a hotel room. That would have saved money.

Julius

When I refer to changing my wheelchair toilet, I meant Changing the bucket. When I said out up with it, I meant the smell. Need computer.

Sharon

To Gina, etc, who are judging people who cannot afford health insurance, SHAME ON YOU. I work as a full time nanny and my husband works full time in the tree industry. We have done everything right, got married, bought a house, established a stable home for a child to be raised in. Unfortunately neither of our jobs offer health insurance. We make too much money to get on state aide and yet cannot afford the individual health insurance plans that cover maternity in our state (which is only 2 by the way! 1 we were rejected from even if we could have paid it). The individual plans are scarce and outrageously priced!!
How dare you be so judgmental, when we work day in and and day out so that we can have a family and a proper home. We pay taxes of all kinds, many of which are covering the births of all those who simply hop on state aide when pregnant, and yet we cannot get any health insurance for ourselves!
Think twice before you judge! Be thankful you have a job that offers health insurance. Be aware that not all people do AND THAT THEY MAKE IT NEARLY IMPOSSIBLE TO GET COVERAGE AS AN INDIVIDUAL.
Thankfully we found some great midwives and are doing a home birth, which will keep our birthing costs low. The next step will be figuring out how to afford the sky-rocketing prices of an individual health insurance plan for our baby when he or she arrives.

Wilma

Julius, that sounds pretty horrible (not the people part, the actual hospital/antiquated equipment part. For my part, here in Canada, the hospitals have been pretty good. The best are in our biggest centres, but I live in a very small city in a province with a small population, and my experiences here have been good, as well. And I must say that I agree with the whole universal health care in principle. But that is a fight with strong proponents on either side.

http://LI8YSL Beth

I have 2 kids, 6 and 1 and we have no health insurance. I shop for it about every 6 months and I can’t find a policy where the premiums are under $800 for me and the kids (these are high deductible policies that don’t do any good anyway) and my husband would need to be insured separately through the state because he is considered uninsurable due to pre-existing conditions. His insurance would be $300 a month, also for a high deductible.

We don’t have any unpaid medical bills out there, we’re not putting it on credit cards and we’re not going without medical care. I listen to/read posts from other moms and I’m always surprised at what people go to a doctor for. Kids get colds and fevers, yes, but that doesn’t require seeing a doctor. In the combined 7 years of my kids’ lives we’ve had exactly ONE dr visit that wasn’t a well baby/child visit.

Furthermore, the prices I’m talking about are high deductible policies anyway. So unless someone breaks an arm, you’re not going to spend enough to actually get any benefit from your policy anyway. And if you have insurance, the doctor’s office won’t give you a cash discount. So not only will you spend a ridiculous amount of money on premiums, you’ll be paying more for your share on top of that. AND once you meet your deductible, your insurance will only cover 70-80% of your costs. It’s not worth it. As a cash payer, we spent $1000 on well baby visits and vaccination during the baby’s first year. It’s really not bad.

We can afford our kids just fine, thank you, but I’m not paying more than our mortgage for meaningless insurance.

Erin Armstrong

Gina, I don’t think your you’re taking into account that many medical insurance policies have a separate maternity rider – that is, unless you purchase extra coverage, anything to do with your pregnancy and delivery, along with post-partum care, is not covered. In most cases, this extra policy must be purchased a minimum of 4 months prior to conception. This is what happened to me. I was under the (apparently mistaken) impression that I was unable to have children due to various medical conditions, so there was no reason for me to purchase maternity coverage. Thank goodness I was unemployed (never thought I’d say that!) and qualified for temporary state coverage for pregnant women. Considering all of the unexpected occurrences with my pregnancy, it would have cost close to a million dollars for my care. So please, before you start in on women about not being able to afford insurance, make sure you are aware of all the ways insurance companies try and succeed in not paying for maternity care.

Julie

I had my daughter 12 weeks premature (November 2012) in an emergency c-section due to HELLP-Syndrome, placenta insufficiency, too little amniotic fluid and IUGR. Our baby was born weighing 1 lb 9.3oz, 13 1/4 inch in length. She spent 99 days in the NICU and had surgery twice during that time. I spent 24 hours in the ICU myself and stayed in hospital 10 days in total. It cost us nothing. Our insurance provider however was billed about 980,000 in total.
Living in Germany makes it so much easier.

Mel

I am rocking_e. I will admit I only read a few comments posted here but let me clarify some things to Gina and the others who have issues with my pregnancy. I have no insurance because only my husbands job offers it and it would have been over $1,000 a month for my family of three. So we chose to do self pay insurance. My husband and son are insured and this one will be too immediately upon birth under his daddy’s insurance policy. I unfortunately am overweight and can not get insurance. I’m sure plenty of you will have issues with that too. I don’t care you don’t live in my shoes or in my family. Never once did I say I couldn’t afford it. What I said was that the price had almost doubled. My family is financially stable and very happy to have a new addition to our family.

C.T.

A return to traditional homebirths is starting to sound more and more like the most practical option, with the side benefit of no unnecessary medical intervention, fewer risky drugs, and the elimination of arrogant doctors who ignore the pleas of the laboring mothers. Seriously, whose body and child is it, anyway?

LK

My first child was a C-section. The bill was $28,000, of which we had to pay 10% out of pocket. That included every single thing that I got from the hospital though (the “birthing” package of approximately 13 doctor visits before giving birth, the labor and delivery room that I was in for a couple hours, the operating room, the medical team, etc.) My second child cost us approximately $1300 out of pocket. We had a different insurance plan at that time, so I cannot remember what the actual bill was. She was a vaginal birth. Of course, none of this included the costs for our children AFTER they were out of me. Totally different bills! I am currently 28+ weeks pregnant with #3, so it will be interesting what this bill will be.
The most stupid thing about child #2 was that for THIRTEEN MONTHS they sent us itemized statements, but never a bill. 13 months! Then we started to get a bill that we were slowly whittling down. They called about 2 months later and wanted their money ASAP. My husband got ticked off and told them, “For 13 months you sent us itemized bills, if you wanted the money that bad you should have started billing us sooner.” So we “agreed” to a payment plan of a couple hundred a month until it was paid off.

Julius

Thanks Wilma for your kind response :).

Elena

Gave birth in 2005 and 2009, vaginal both times, 1 day hospital stay both times. No complications, no NICU, nothing. As vanilla as it gets. Got billed over 12K for each one, and had 2K out of pocket expenses (our insurance coverd 80%). This did not include physician charges. Cannot imagine what C-section would have cost. Could not afford the co-pays either time, but had to anyways. Disgusting!

Bron A

I had a home birth and total cost was $2135 and that included my labs, birthing pool and liner rental, all prenatal visits and exams, well baby exam at birth, 1 day, 3 days, 1 week, and 2 weeks and post baby exams for me at 1 week and 6 weeks. This would have also included stitches had I needed any (but I didn’t yay!!)! I honestly loved my birth experience and will do the same for any other babies I have. Its not just about the money either, its the level of care and no pressure to get unnecessary interventions!

http://facebook holly

Thank god im canadian lol ohip covers everything except the exstra’s like a semi private or private room but really i can suck it up for 3 days to be in the same room with 3 other women. I was lucky and got a private room with my first but my secound i had to share with 2 other women. I didnt pay anything except parking for my husband. I had c sections for both and we are pregnant with our last one and we cant wait

christi

It angers me when I read peoples comments about how people who can’t afford insurance or who don’t have it, shouldn’t have kids. What right do you have to Judge? I don’t have insurance and yet my daughter has everything she needs. I do get Medicade for her, due to the fact that I don’t make that much and neither dose my husband

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Note: This is a fun post spoofing a popular series on one of my favorite technology blogs. The boy scouts have a motto “always be prepared.” My son doesn’t know that because he is 3. But he does like to be prepared in case an adventure (or a 30-minute ride to his grandparents house) presents… Read more »